Alex Schweder and Ward Shelley, The Newcomers, via Performa

Returning for another year of dynamic events, expansive projects, installations and performances spread throughout New York City this month, the wildly popular Performa Performance Art Biennial is set to touch down once again this year.  Curated once again by founder RoseLee Goldberg, Performa spans the next three weeks, bringing with it a sudden charge of energy and life to a city preparing for the subdued energy of the winter months. (more…)

The Guardian has published an imaginative profile on Marcel Duchamp, noting some of the artist’s quirks and passions, including his avid chess-playing, his daring transportation of his art materials out of Nazi Germany posing as a cheese vendor, and his takes on quickly produced artworks: “Quick art, that’s been the characteristic of the whole century from the cubists on, ” he once said.  “The speed that’s being used in space, in communications, is also being used in art. But things of great importance in art have always to be slowly produced.” (more…)

Richard, First Communion of Anemic Young Girls In The Snow and other works (Installation View), via Interstate Projects

For the past month, Interstate Gallery in Bushwick has acted as the first physical base for Richard, a predominantly Internet-focused catalog of objects and items centered around new possibilities and interpretations of the readymade art object in the 21st century.  Turning the work of Marcel Duchamp once more towards a populist, group project, Richard challenges the concepts of labor and potentials for the the readymade in new perspectives of art practice and conceptual operation.

Richard, First Communion of Anemic Young Girls In The Snow and other works (Installation View), via Interstate Projects (more…)

The Bride and the Bachelors: Duchamp with Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg and Johns, (Installation View) © Felix Clay 2013. Courtesy of Barbican Art Gallery

Taking a diverse look at Marcel Duchamp’s influence on artists around the globe, the Barbican in London is currently presenting The Bride and the Bachelors: Duchamp with Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg and Johns, following the artist’s influence on several modern masters in the fields of composition, choreography and the visual arts. Featuring around 90 works by Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, as well as choreographic work by Merce Cunningham and works by John Cage, the show takes great pleasure in crossing the disciplines of art, dance and music to reflect the multi-faceted work of these artists.

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain (1950 replica of 1917 original) Photo Felix Clay 2013, Courtesy of Barbican Art Gallery. (more…)

The View from Outside The 2013 Armory Show

The doors opened this morning on the 2013 edition of the Armory Art show, welcoming press and VIP’s into the massive exhibition halls of Piers 92 and 94 on the waterfront of New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood.  It was a special year for New York’s biggest annual art event, marking the 100 year anniversary of its namesake, the 1913 exhibition that welcomed the European avant-garde to American shores, and gave many their first glimpses of Marcel Duchamp, Matisse and Edvard Munch, among many others.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg Makes the Opening Remarks at The 2013 Armory Show (more…)

It was 100 years ago this week that the first Armory Show brought the avant-garde of Europe to the United States, turning conceptions of painting and art-making on its ear.  Lasting only four weeks, the show offered American art-goers some of the first glimpses of work by Picasso, Edvard Munch, Duchamp, and many more.   (more…)

In commemoration of the groundbreaking 1913 Armory Arts Show and its impact on the world of contemporary art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York has produced a series of videos emphasizing their collection of works from that year.   The videos are available for viewing at the museum’s website, and feature museum curators discussing their favorite works in the museum collection, including works by Umberto Boccioni, Marcel Duchamp and Fernand Léger. (more…)

In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the groundbreaking 1913 Armory Show, the United States Postal Service has announced a series of 12 stamps honoring the early pioneers of modern art.  The Modern Art in America 1913-1931 series includes stamps dedicated to Marcel Duchamp, Georgia O’Keefe, Joseph Stella, and more. (more…)

Image: A gallery worker walks past Seagram murals by Mark Rothko in London via Reuters

Following the incident of the Rothko painting that was defaced yesterday, the estate of Mark Rothko expressed its confidence in the Tate. Reuters spoke to the suspect, providing additional details on possible motive:

Image: Vladimir Umanets via The Times of London
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Will Gompertz, writer, editor, and a director at the Tate, has created a new timeline for Modern Art, using the map of the London Tube as a guide. Gompertz focuses on how Duchamp’s Fountain changed the course of art history forever.

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Sturtevant. Photo by Loren Muzzey. All images courtesy the artist and Moderna Museet unless otherwise noted.

For half a century, Sturtevant has built her practice on the citation of other artists’ works. Challenging authorship through acts of appropriation long before it was made popular by the likes of Sherrie Levine and Richard Prince, Sturtevant made her artistic debut in 1965, when she presented a roomful of Warhol silkscreen flowers at a gallery mere months after the originals had been created. Although largely overlooked until recent years, Sturtevant won a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at last year’s Venice Biennale. Her latest exhibition, Image over Image, opened March 17th at Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Showcasing 30 works, 4 of which are the artist’s “originals,” the exhibition fosters a sort of wall label guessing-game. As visitors travel from room to room they are confronted with familiar works from modernist art history—a Jasper Johns here, a Duchamp there. Among other artists cited in this exhibition are Joseph Beuys, Keith Haring, Félix González-Torres, John Waters, and Paul McCarthy.

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Louise Bourgeois, Untitled (1996)

Passage Dangereux, on view now at the Hamburg Kunsthalle, is a centennial celebration of the late Louise Bourgeois, showcasing work from the last 15 years of her life. Regarded as one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, Bourgeois’ work evades stylistic categorization, toeing the line between figuration and abstraction in a range of artistic genres, media, and modes of display. The Kunsthalle honors this unique artist on the advent of what would be her 100th birthday, in a diverse show of sculpture, installation, and print, several of which have never before been seen in Germany, to confront existential and deeply autobiographical themes.

Louise Bourgeois, Maman (1999)

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Mircea Cantor’s work in FIAC 2011, image by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed, all photos by Art Observed unless otherwise noted.

By the close of FIAC on Sunday evening, some 68,000+ visitors had come through the fair.  These attendance figures represent a 6% increase from the previous year, reports the New York Times.  Housed this year in the exuberant Grand Palais, the fair showed strong sales from the get go. Despite the global economic downtown of recent years, the atmosphere was effervescent. French, American, and German galleries dominated the space (55, 26, and 21, respectively), but participants from Brazil, Turkey, and South Africa showed a strong presence at the fair for the first time. New York newcomers Matthew Marks, Eleven Rivington, Andrew Kreps, Michele Maccarone and Friedrich Petzel did well, and Pace Gallery made a comeback after a long absence. Compared to Frieze the week before in London, many fair-goers felt that the Parisian fair was riskier in content, creating a more exciting and eclectic display of artworks.

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FIAC 2011 at the Grand Palais in Paris. All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

FIAC 2011 (The Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain) opens this weekend in Paris for its 38th year. The international art fair, which boasts an impressive array of 168 galleries from 21 countries, will show the work of some 2,800+ artists. Running October 20–23rd, the exposition comes at the tail end of Frieze Art Fair, drawing artists, collectors, gallerists, and enthusiasts eastward from London. While the focus of Frieze leans toward contemporary, FIAC includes both contemporary and modern, including works from Picasso, Calder, and Matisse. The fair has been building momentum since 2006; Jennifer Flay, appointed general director in 2010, credits this boost to the fair’s move to the Grand Palais, one of the city’s most cherished architectural gems. The fair also expands this year to the Jardin des Tuileries, the Jardin des Plantes, the Museum of Natural History, and other venues around the city. Another innovation, a mobile application (in French) is available through Windows Phone which enables visitors to book tickets directly from their phone, as well as receive realtime news updates from the fair, find exhibitors and artists, and access videos and photos of the show.

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Jay Jopling of White Cube, which is exhibiting Damien Hirst’s Where Will It End.

More on site coverage and images after the jump… (more…)

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Subodh Gupta, Untitled, 2011, oil on canvas. All images courtesy Hauser & Wirth.

Opening tonight at Hauser & Wirth New York is an ascetic new exhibition by Indian artist Subodh Gupta. The artist, who is often referred to as “The Damien Hirst of Delhi,” earned his nickname from a dazzling sculpture of a skull entitled Very Hungry God (2006). He is the leader of a group of Indian artists whom mega-curator Hans Ulrich Obrist frequently heralds as art world game-changers, and his works regularly fetch auction prices over 1 million USD.

In contrast to this glitzy reputation, “A glass of water” is shockingly subdued. The exhibition takes its name from a work in which a metal drinking cup rests atop a table, filled to the brim with fresh water. Its origin and constant replenishment remain a mystery. The tension created– that the cup may overflow at any moment, from a visitor’s step or breath– “serves up a rich metaphor for the almost unbearable tension between luxury and depletion, accumulation and deprivation, acquisition and exhaustion that are the daily diet of exploding international culture,” explains the exhibition statement.

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Ed Ruscha, Baby Jet, 1998. Photo by Paul Ruscha, courtesy of Moderna Museet.

Currently on view at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden, through September 5, is Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting. This exhibition, which is a collaboration with Hayward Gallery in London, shows more than 70 paintings. It spans the period from 1958, five years prior to his debut in 1963 at the legendary Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, to the present day. Curated by Lars Nittve and Ann-Sofi Noring, the installation groups Ruscha’s works in chronological order so as to allow the viewer to see the development of the artist’s various motifs and styles over time.

The exhibition’s overarching theme, of course, is words and their constantly shifting relationships with context and message. As the curators explain, “In all his paintings there are tensions and frictions at play: between foreground and background, between text and image, and between how words look and what they mean.”

Installation shot, Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years Of Painting. Photo by Ã…sa Lundén, courtesy of Moderna Museet.

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Billboard paintings after Dennis Hopper photographs, courtesy of LA Observed.

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Dennis Hopper’s photograph series, 1961 to 2010, courtesy of When You Awake.

‘Dennis Hopper Double Standard,’ a comprehensive survey of artwork by the late cultural icon, is currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The exhibition explores an interdisciplinary body of creative work produced by actor, director, photographer, painter, sculptor, and conceptual artist Dennis Hopper, over the course of his prolific sixty-year career. More than two hundred objects crafted in a variety of media are on view, including a rare early painting completed in 1955, before to the loss of the artist’s studio and much of his work in the 1961 Bel Air fire. Curated by artist Julian Schnabel, ‘Dennis Hopper Double Standard’ is the inaugural exhibition of the museum’s new director, former New York gallerist Jeffrey Deitch. Prior to his death in May of this year, from complications related to prostate cancer, Hopper also played a significant role in the organization of the exhibit.

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MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch, actress Diane Keaton and Jean Stein at the Opening of ‘Dennis Hopper Double Standard’ on July 10th, 2010, courtesy of the Huffington Post.

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On May 6, a multidisciplinary art festival dedicated to Marchel Duchamp and the creation of his latest and most mysterious masterpiece Etant donnés: 1° la chute d’eau, 2° le gaz d’éclairage opened in Chexbres, Switzerland.  The festival is presented by the Association Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art and ECAL/University of Art and Design, Lausanne.  The floor will be given to the internationally most renowned Duchamp experts who will speak about the Forestay, the Lavaux-Region, Etant donnés and the reception of Marcel Duchamp by contemporary artists.

Etant donnés: 1° la chute d’eau, 2° le gaz d’éclairage by Marcel Duchamp via Artdaily

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At PMA, “Head of a Woman” (1937-38). Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

AO visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, which are both showing survey exhibitions of the avant-garde in Paris in the early twentieth century. “Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris,” at PMA, is an exhaustive display of thirty years of Picasso, from 1905 to 1945, following him through the development of Cubism and artist communities in Paris. The Guggenheim’s show is smaller and less concentrated on Picasso; it includes thirty works by Picasso, Léger, Chagall, Braque, and more, where the PMA’s 200-strong exhibition includes works by Picasso collaborators and contemporaries as they interact with his own.

At the Guggenheim, Pablo Picasso, “Mandolin and Guitar (Mandoline et guitare)” (1924). Oil with sand on canvas Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York  Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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Five Points/Triangles by Alexander Calder, 1957
All images via Gagosian Gallery unless otherwise noted

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery, New York is an exhibition of the large-format sculptures of Alexander Calder, produced between 1957 and 1970. The exhibition pays tribute to the late oeuvre of this renowned American sculptor, illuminating the period when Calder almost exclusively dedicated himself to sculpture of monumental proportions – the genre that brought him the international acclaim.

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School, 2008 Subodh Gupta [ All images via Hauser & Wirth unless otherwise noted]

Currently showing at Hauser & Wirth London, 15 Old Bond Street is “School,” a selection of most recent works by Subodh Gupta.  The show features forty five brass stools paired with stainless steel thali trays (traditional Indian trays with multiple compartments used for meals containing several dishes).

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Terence Koh captured mid-lecture during his performance “Art History: 1642-2009” at the National Arts Club, New York via Zimbio

Last night ArtObserved was on site at New York City’s National Arts Club to witness a performance,”Art History: 1642 – 2009,” from Terence Koh.  The performance was curated by Stacey Engman, the National Arts Club‘s Contemporary Art Chair and Chief Curator and was in conjunction with Performa 09. Indeed, the theme of the night – a tour through the great canon of Art History – was set from the beginning of the night as guests, who included Aurel Schmidt, Vito Schnabel, Klaus Biesenbach, Marina Abramovic and Mary Boone, mingled in a salon-style reception in the beautiful front parlours of the club house. The performance was to take the form of an Art History lecture, accompanied by images of artworks – this was about all guests knew before the show started and so guessing and anticipating became the game of choice for all in attendance.

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A visitor looks through two holes in a wooden door to Étant donnés, the Marcel Duchamp masterpiece behind it and the subject of a new show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Image via the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Through November 29, 2009, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is showing works by the late master Marcel Duchamp. Almost 100 works of art related to the artist’s Étant donnés are featured in this celebration of the 40th anniversary of the piece’s unveiling at the Museum, which has hosted it since 1969. Drawn mostly from the museum’s holdings, the show also includes works on loan from public and private holdings in Germany, Israel, France, Sweden, and the United States.

Related links:
Given, Finally [artnet]
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Landscape of Eros, Through the Peephole [New York Times]
A peek into Duchamp [Philadelphia Inquirer]
Duchamp’s Secret Masterpiece [Wall Street Journal]

Interior view of Marcel Duchamp’s Étant donnés, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Image via the Wall Street Journal.

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The show is comprised of works by 63 artists, with some pieces showing publicly for the first time. The sweeping comprehensiveness of the exhibition allows for a juxtaposition of artists rarely seen. Paintings by Claude Monet accompany those by Cy Twombly and Paul Signac. Cubist Georges Braque brings the cartoons of Jean Dubufett into sharper relief. Included are Paul Cézanne and Abstract Expressionists Mark Rothko and Sam Francis, in an exhibition that shows even the pop art of Andy Warhol and the Surrealist paintings of Salvador Dalí.

Ferdinand Hodler, “le Grammont,” at Fondation l’Hermitage. Image courtesy of the museum.

Yves Klein, “ANT 20,” at Fondation l’Hermitage. Image courtesy of the museum.

Initially founded in 1984 with the Bugnion Family collection, Fondation l’Hermitage now boasts over 600 works, shown in rotation along with its temporary exhibitions. The Fondation is also home to a collection of 12th-19th century Chinese porcelain, donated by the Vergottis Foundation and on permanent display in its underground space.

René Magritte, “La Ruse Symétrique,” at Fondation l’Hermitage. Image courtesy of the museum.

Paul Klee, “Felsenlandschaft,” at Fondation l’Hermitage. Image courtesy of the museum.

Edgar Degas, “Danseuses (Danseuses au repos),” at Fondation l’Hermitage. Image courtesy of the museum.

– R. Fogel